


The First Shift

by germanjj



Series: Hide From The Moon [1]
Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Coda, M/M, Pre-Slash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-07-17
Updated: 2012-07-17
Packaged: 2017-11-10 04:43:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,107
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/462313
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/germanjj/pseuds/germanjj
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>set right after 2.04 - "Abomination"</p><p>Somehow, Derek ends up sleeping on Stiles' floor.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The First Shift

~+++++++++

"I know one thing: when I find it, I'm gonna kill it." 

It's echoing inside Stiles' head, even as he watches Derek turn and walk away; his words burning slowly into Stiles' skin, screaming _"this is real, this is happening"_ and not stopping. For a moment Stiles is shocked by the sheer force of it. He's watching Derek; he can only see his back, but the way he's holding himself, the way he's walking slowly, so slowly, tells him a lot.

How determined Derek is. How tough, how strong. How dangerous.

But there's still something else, something Stiles can see only a glimpse of. It was there when Derek met his eyes at the word "abomination" hanging between them. It's there now right between the hunch of his shoulders, the slow pace of his steps.

Vulnerability.

For two hours, this man's life had literally been in Stiles' hands. The physical effects of the venom had maybe worn off by now, but Stiles isn't sure how much of the mental ones remained. Derek still doesn't look good. His eyes are dark, his face pale. He looks haunted. Human.

Stiles swallows past the lump in his throat.

"Stiles!" A voice shouts suddenly and the four of them swivel around; Erica and Derek not having made it very far, and Scott startling beside him.

"Dad!" Stiles wheezes, his hands flying up to his head. This? No good.

The police car stops right next to the group and Stiles watches Erica make a beeline for the next cover while Derek stays where he is, his eyes tracking Stiles' father's every move.

"Uhm, hi Dad." Stiles takes his eyes off the other man and turns to his father, smiling up at him as gets out of the car. "What are you doing here?"

"I'm here to pick you up after the game, remember?" He's looking from Stiles to Scott to Derek and then back again.

"Uhm, uh, yeah of course. But I can go with Scott, no problem."

His father's gaze settles on him again. "You told me that Scott's supposed to pick up his mother from the hospital," he says very slowly, half as if he's talking to a little kid, half like he's suspecting something else was going on here.

"Oh my god, Mom!" Scott shouts before Stiles can say anything in response. He doesn't even watch him as his best friends runs away in horror, stumbling over something halfway to his car and jumping back up as if an army of werewolf hunters was behind him.

He forgot to pick up his mom once. He barely lived to tell the tale.

"Bye, Scott!" Stiles shouts after him anyway.

There's an awkward smile and a pause shared between the Stilinskys and then Stiles' father nods to something behind Stiles. "Your friend need a ride?"

Stiles turns to look at what his father is talking about and there he is, still standing in the middle of the parking lot. Derek.

"No, he doesn't... he can..."

"He doesn't look so good."

Stiles glances over to Derek, and yes, well, he kind of really doesn't. "Well, he's just tired, was a long day and all." _Got paralyzed, almost drowned in a pool. You know, that can be tough on a guy,_ he adds in his head.

In front of them Derek - and Stiles never thought he'd see this - sways. Just for a second, just like he's losing his balance and then getting it back. The venom must still be effecting him more than Stiles had thought. "Okay, I guess we can drop him off somewhere."

"Hey, Derek, you wanna catch a ride with us?" He shouts over to him, fully expecting Derek to shake his head and walk away.

Derek doesn't. He stares at them for quite some time, and for a moment Stiles actually feels the pinch of worry in his stomach, but then Derek nods, walking over to them.

 

Derek is quiet on the way home. Which is nothing new except when Stiles glances into the rear view mirror to take a look at the backseat, he finds Derek huddled into the seat, his arms folded in front of him, eyes closed.

Sleeping.

"He's staying with us," Stiles' father announces. His voice is low, eyes not drifting off the street although he must have caught his son checking up on Derek.

"What!?" Stiles freaks out as quietly as he can. "You can't be serious!"

"Look at the kid, Stiles. He's clearly not okay. You know what kind of people fall asleep in a Sheriff's car?"

"People without a conscience?" Stiles mumbles under his breath. Also, calling Derek Hale a kid? Something inside Stiles wants to break into hysterical laughter at the thought. He has a hard time imagining Derek as a child. He always kind of thought that he had always been, well ... _him_. The guy who thinks a death glare and some well positioned violence would get him anything. 

Sheriff Stilinsky turns his head to catch his son's eyes. "He might not be a minor anymore," his father starts, voice stern, "but he's only a few years older than you, Stiles, and that makes him a kid to me. I will not drop him off somewhere in the middle of the night where I can't be sure he'll be okay the next morning."

"He's Derek Hale, Dad," Stiles hisses, hoping quietly that Derek really is sleeping and that his werewolf senses are turned off for this. "He was the suspect of a murder investigation!"

That earns him a glare from his father. 

"Yes, and he was proven innocent. I taught you better than that, Stiles," his feather says, low and disappointed, and that's not fair. Stiles can't handle his father's disappointment.

"Fine." Stiles sighs.

 

It's not so bad once they get Derek inside. He barely wakes up during it, only blinks at them from time to time, and growling once, but Stiles is pretty sure his father didn't notice that.

It's scary, to say the least, to watch the big bad alpha Derek Hale being pushed and pulled up into Stiles' bedroom. Stiles starts to wonder if the venom is responsible for this, if it turns out to have any longterm effects on werewolfs, or if it's just the exhaustion catching up with Derek.

He's almost at the point where he feels sorry for the guy once he has him lying on his floor, a batman pillow shoved under his head and one of Stiles' ugliest blankets thrown over him.

Derek doesn't seem to care at all. He's sleeping like a baby.

 

Stiles wakes up from a noise on his right. 

It takes a moment, Stiles blinking against the pale moonlight falling through his window, and then he sees the cause of the noise.

"Holy..." He pushes his comforter to the side and is up on his feet before he even realizes what he's doing.

"Derek?" he whispers, shooting a quick look at the door. He desperately hopes his dad didn't hear anything because him coming in right now would be very, very bad.

Derek is not longer lying next to him on the floor. He's standing by the window, claws long and dangerous, his fangs showing. Stiles can't make out his eyes because Derek has his head down, but he's pretty sure they're yellow or red or whatever they turn into these days. 

"Derek?" he tries again, taking a step towards him.

Derek's head jerks up for a moment, and yes, red, thank you very much. 

But that's not what Stiles is staring at.

It's Derek, _shaking_. 

It doesn't look like he actually sees Stiles or anything else around him. He's staring deep inside his own mind and his face...

He looks scared. 

Or better yet, he looks utterly terrified and confused and _young_. Suddenly Stiles can see the kid his dad was talking about.

"Derek?" Okay, now this is really starting to scare Stiles too. "Derek? Wake up, okay?"

There's no reaction, no change from the other man. Wolf. Whatever.

Stiles takes another careful step. "Can you please wake up and stop this, yes? You're kinda scaring me here." Stiles laughs weakly, but the sound is actually scaring him more, falling onto the thick tension lying in the air.

He makes it all the way over to Derek without tripping, without actually following his instincts and running the other way as fast as he can. 

"Derek," his whispers, swallows hard. He reaches out carefully, his right hand brushing Derek's left, and his heart is hammering in his chest; Stiles is expecting to be ripped to shreds any minute now.

"Shhhh," he makes; he's not even aware he's doing it until a shudder rips through Derek's body and he looks up, for real this time, meeting Stiles' eyes.

"Shhh," Stiles does it again, grips a little bit harder now because it seems to working. Derek's breathing calms down just a fraction, but his eyes seem clearer now, focusing on Stiles.

"Okay," Stiles takes a deep breath and his life is gonna start flashing before his eyes any second now, he's sure of it. "Okay, Derek, I'm gonna do something reaaallly crazy now, okay? So would you mind if you didn't kill me immediately? Think of my dad, okay? How he'd be all alone? Sans Stiles. Have a heart here, okay?"

Derek doesn't react, just keeps on staring, the red of his eyes flickering in the dark.

Stiles makes another step, right up into Derek's personal space. He opens his arms, slowly, very slowly pulling Derek into them.

"Please don't kill me. Please don't kill me, please don't kill me." Stiles has his eyes pressed closed now so his other senses are running batshit insane.

It must be the adrenaline, the proximity to an alpha werewolf, because _hallo_? Right here in his arms!

Stiles can hear his own heartbeat, feels it vibrating through his whole body, but he also thinks that he can feel Derek's too, slowly calming down. He can hear him breathe, can hear a hitch under his breath that Stiles might be imagining, but most of all, Stiles can feel him. 

He's just touching him, not really holding him yet, because a part of Stiles is still waiting for his imminent death, but he can already feel the unbelievable strength of the alpha pulsing inside the other man's body, the burning heat of the skin underneath the clothes.

It's different. It's startling. Stiles pulls Derek closer without thinking about it, pulling him flush against him when the tension in Derek's body seems to ebb away. 

It feels different than in the pool. This time Stiles is trying to save him from something completly different, something Stiles can't even see. Nightmares. The past. 

Somehow, those things feel much more real, much more dangerous than a Kanima.

"I got you," Stiles says without meaning to, but the words leave his mouth before he can take them back, and for a second Stiles doesn't even know if he would want to.

"You're safe now. You're safe here, it was just a dream." Stiles keeps on babbling, words and words pouring out of his mouth he barely notices saying. It's what his mother had done back then. Reassuring that Stiles was safe, that everything was going to be okay. 

Later, when he'll start thinking about it, Stiles will notice that none of it is really true. That Derek isn't safe. That Stiles has no idea if things are actually going to be better. But here and now, he believes it. He believes it with all his heart and he has to, _needs_ to, so Derek can trust him. So Derek can calm down.

Stiles keeps on talking, his words turning into a whisper, until minutes and minutes later, Derek shifts in his embrace. Just a little bit, just enough that Stiles can feel the other man's breath hitting the skin of Stiles' neck and now it's Stiles who's shuddering, whose throat is dry all of a sudden.

They keep silent after that. Stiles listens to Derek's heartbeat, listens to the rhythm of his breath until his own eyes are dropping close, until tiredness is taking over again. The exhaustion of the day is slowly creeping into his bones and Stiles can barely hold himself up anymore, let alone Derek with him.

Stiles doesn't know when Derek fully wakes up from his nightmare, but one moment he's keeping them both upright and the next he finds himself waking up in his own bed, the early morning sun just reaching the end of his desk and the spot next to his bed empty.

~+++++++++~


End file.
